The Paparazzi Costume

On the way to dinner after Halloween 1999, I struck upon an idea for a
costume so incredible, that I would surely be arrested for radical
extremism. "But the world is not ready for
Tianamensturation!" I told myself, "think of something
that people will enjoy, something they love!"

Fresh from an amazing Halloween party at a motion-picture special
effects company, I had experienced the excitement of
having my picture taken over and over again. It was cool, feeling
famous for a few hours, posing for pictures. I wondered if I could turn
that around...make a costume that did the flashing. Flashing
lights seemed to always be a big hit with crowds, and, done correctly,
this could be the flashiest costume of all.

I had some insight as to how I might accomplish this effect because of
my brother. Mike worked for a few years at a one-hour photo shop in
Davis, California, where he tore open disposable cameras and developed the film
inside. Back then, the used camera shells were simply
discarded. Mike had brought a few of the expensive ones (the ones
with the flash) back to my parents' house. He discovered how to
activate the flash, and we took turns blinding each other in the garage.
The mechanism was rigged and dangerous: The big capacitor dumps out
through a transformer, creating a high-voltage surge to ignite the
bulb. That big surge is strong enough to shock the crap out of
you. Mike remembered having tiny white scars where he had been shocked.
It could numb your whole arm.

"I'll be careful", I thought to myself...famous last words.

On September 11th, I composed a short note aimed at convincing
photo-processing shops to give up their spent camera shells. I printed
out five, and bought some nice white paper pails the photolabs could use as
"collection pails".

I don't have much experience asking people for handouts like this, but I
was hoping people could get behind a fun project like this one. I was
nervous. I figured I would need about 25 cameras.

HELP

In order to create a
flashing "Paparazzi" costume for Halloween, I am trying to
collect 25 shells left over from disposable cameras with flashes. I
need the flash, capacitor and battery. Don't worry about the battery
being dead, just leave the shell intact or mangled, it doesn't matter.

I will check back on
September 30th to see if you collected any, or you can call
or email me for any reason. Besides re-using them, I will recycle the
plastic used on the cameras when I am finished with this project.

THANK
YOU!

Rob
Cockerham

Michelle at work saw my camera
collection plan beginning to unfold and she gave me some valuable
advice. She told me that larger Target Stores have one-hour photo
labs, and that I should try my luck with the big fish first, instead of
collecting 5 or 6 cameras at 8 different places.

Target paid off big-time. The first store, near Sunrise Mall, had
an overflowing bin of camera shells! Kodak had obviously stepped up
their reclamation efforts. The nice woman behind the counter wasn't
ready to give me all of them, but she picked out 12 and handed them
over. I was ecstatic! Ten minutes and I had half of the supplies I
needed!

At the next Target, I learned more about the economics of used camera
shells. Kodak pays Target US30˘ for each unmutilated shell. This
meant that the folks behind the counter were reticent to give away the
farm, but they were always willing to give a few away.

In total I got 35 cameras from 4 Target stores, and 17 from a Rite Aid
Pharmacy. I came up empty handed at a WalMart, a Walgreen's and
Raleys. With 52 cameras I was ready to move to the next step...figuring
out the electronics.

Inside
each camera is a beautiful little circuit board, with battery, capacitor,
transformer and flash. I needed to get these little babies to work
together...without shocking myself too many times.

I tested a new AA battery in one of these shells, trying to get an idea
of how many flashes I could get from one. I lost count at 650 flashes. They
would last all night!

Ross is my friend who knows the most about electronics. He is the kind of
guy who has a remote-control on his dimmer-switch. We carefully dissected
a couple of cameras on his table.

I wanted to see if there was an easy way to wire all of the cameras
together to achieve a progressive wave of flashes. *pop*,*pop*,
*popopopop*,
like a real bank of photographers. Ideally, I would only need one
button to trigger the whole thing, leaving one hand free to hold a cup of
punch or hand out my résumé. I was afraid that trying to activate 25
separate switches was going to be a nightmare. Ross tried to convince me
to use disposable bulbs, but it was already too late, I had 53 cameras in
my house. He studied the circuits and drew up a few plans...the
cascading flash effect was not going to be easy. Some kind of button
array looked like the easiest alternative.

With
the electronic solution in limbo, I set about collecting materials for the
rest of the costume. I still had 5 weeks left, so I was finding
cheap solutions. I bought 8 2-liter bottles of soda so that I could
use the domed-plastic top for an olde-tyme flash parabola. This
picture shows them hanging up to dry after I painted them silver.

I was having trouble drinking/giving away the soda fast enough, so I ended
up buying 10 bottles from a homeless guy. Here in California,
2-liter plastic bottles have a US5˘ deposit, so they are actively mined
from the downtown dumpsters.

I offered a pleasant looking hobo US50˘ each, and he handed me his
massive bag. I picked out 10 uncrushed bottles and loaded them into
my trunk. I paid with a crisp, new 5 dollar bill. This is as close to
charity work as I got all year.

For
the photographer's faces, I brushed the inside of clear, plastic
masks with opaque paint. They were starting to look pretty
creepy...

Adding paper eyes increased the creepiness by a factor of four. I filled
the masks with expanding foam.
The drying foam reacted with the plastic masks and warped each one
slightly. I wasn't sure I wanted to sleep with these things in my
room.

I
wasn't really sure how I was going to attach the faces to the back-panel.

I
bought 100 feet of telephone cord and cut it into 7 foot lengths.
Each flash unit needed four wires connected, so the phone cord was a
perfect fit (it has four strands). Phone cord is one of the cheapest wires
available. The wire simply extended the two switches that were
already on the cameras: I soldered one pair of wires to the flash
charging switch, and the other pair to the flash activator.

I
planned on having flashes across the top of the costume, with the wires
leading to a master switchbox.

The cameras were constructed of black plastic pipe, corrugated plastic,
and black gaffer's tape. I glued compasses and pencil sharpeners on
the outside so they would have some detail. I also glued on some plastic
bits from the wasted camera shells.

They looked pretty good!

I
cut apart an old backpack and hot-glued the backing to it. I used an
old election sign made out of corrugated plastic. These sheets are
lightweight and very strong. the
back of this sign still says "Robbie Waters,
Mayor, for all the people".

I knew I was going to a big, open warehouse, so I was free to make it
as big as I wanted. The only restriction was that it had to fit in my car.

I plotted out where the 12 faces should go and cut a rough outline
out. The middle "O" is for my face.

It
was October 17th when I did the main assembly. First I attached the flash
structures to the cameras. Second I glued the faces to the backing,
then I poked wire hangers through the body of each camera, through the eye
of a face. I ran the wire down to a central location within my
reach. I built a final "camera" as the control box and
mounted two rotary switches inside. It was coming together, but I
was running out of time. I wanted it to be as finished as possible
so that I could come back from Costa
Rica and not have too much work to do on it.

The party was on Saturday night, Oct.28. When I arrived back in
Sacramento Thursday night, I immediately began finishing up the costume. I was
beginning to realize what an awesome costume I was building. On
Saturday morning before the party, I bought some felt at a local fabric
store. The cashier told me I should come to their costume party at 2 pm.
"What's first prize?" I asked. She didn't know. I
guess that sounded pretty cocky.

When I am working on a big project like this one, I work slowly.
I savor the progress of it coming together, and I am cautious about steps
that I cannot "undo". The final step was to solder
the flash circuits to my rotary switches. I was pretty nervous about
this step, because I didn't know for sure that they were going to work
using a common ground wire. I had been working on the flash units without
batteries. This was to avoid getting shocked, but it meant that I
couldn't test as I went. Luckily when I finally loaded the batteries
in, they worked!

I was giddy. My brother loaned me the perfect black reporter's hat and
I glued plastic hats onto the other 12 reporters.

I
loaded the costume into my car with minimal damage and headed to Rob &
Helen's apartment in Marin County. We arrived at the party early and I met
Katy (I was her guest for the party). Right away I crossed the
stage and got a great crowd reaction. Using the two knobs, I could
unleash flashes from all 18 cameras in a couple of seconds. I
flashed like there was no tomorrow.

People approached me with tiny pupils, "Are you paparazzi?",
they asked.

I was starting to get the idea that I could be a winner in the
costume contest.